An Unamed Mystery
by Alice Adams Poe
Summary: A story I wrote for a contest, that I wasn't planning on entering anyway, so I simply wrote it for fun. Its a mystery with a twist, and so I think it belongs under Poe.


Those scoundrels, those rotten men! Oh if I could relate to you why I hate them, then surly you would understand. That was what my face said as I walked into my apartment that day, covered in banana peels and other garbage. I was bloodstained, and looked drunk, but my friend could tell I was not. He looked up from his newspaper, his glasses on the end of his nose. "Loose a bet?" He asked with a good-humored chuckle. "Oh don't bother," I said tearing off some of the looser pieces of garbage, "I have enough to worry about then to walk in here to see you chastise me about my doings." My friend only shook his head at my words. "Your face says it all, you tried to get your revenge on the 'Jane' crew?" Now the Jane crew for those of you who don't know is a gang of 40-somethings who have the middle name of Jane, they aren't violent, but never make a bet, deal, or otherwise loan them anything. Give them a cent you'll never hear from it again until you open up your next Monday paper and learn of some crime only done with a penny. It was never a murder at least not until they borrowed a hefty some of money from my family 12 years ago.

They used it not only to break into a mansion-they also used it to murder the owner of the mansion it was good that the only heir to it had been on vacation. Sadly, the men were able to get away, but the original twelve members of this gang was reduced to seven. Four were caught and one was shot, but the others vanished. Over the years a few died off, or grew to old or tired of the 'Janes'. Now only four were left. "Why aren't you more vengeful toward the 'Jane' crew?" My friend looked up at me his eyes locking with my own, and he set his paper down. "I unlike you, know that they are low-life scum, and decide not to try to work anything out of them except what I know I can." "How do you propose which you can and cannot do?" "Simple, those who were once Jane's can be easily forgiven, and much of their money is returned to me." "You gave them-" "Not I, but my family." "So why did they murder your father then?" "As far as I know, to get his estate, and nothing more." "Why did you sell it?" I asked my friend. He was the heir to the man who had been murdered, and had come to join with me in this apartment. "I did not want a glorious mansion where all of the Earth's monsters would dare reap their fangs, and claw their way in." My friend was intelligent, but in no way was he easy going. "So, seeing as you are done reading, care to help me with them?" "And why? When is the 13th year to come?" "Tomorrow, at exactly 12:13am."

After thirteen years of waiting, I would finally get my owed money back from the Jane crew! Oh, they needed none of my money anymore then I needed their friendship, but for them to cheat me out of my money only meant that I was to cheat them out of their's. My friend would accompany me, but I would do everything why should I bring a man along who would have no part in it if he had a choice? For he was to be the whiteness. The unlucky number thirteen would be the best time for my revenge. I happened, in my last unsuccessful attempt to find the location of the Jane crew for the past week at exactly 12:13 am. Each day I got closer, and on the last, the time when this story began, I found it, but was discovered. I was beaten, and then thrown into the dumpster. Luckily it wasn't the Jane crew who found me, but some teenagers who were strong and wanted to mug me. _'To bad'_, I had nothing on hand. I knew where the Jane crew's hideouts were at exactly 12:13 am, but I didn't know that there were many security systems I'd have to bypass to get into the lonely factory that sat about two blocks away from my dwellings. My friend wandered over to the twenty-four coffee shop located across the street, and sat in the window chair, to read his newspaper. He always could be found reading even in the busiest parts of town.

As he read I put my plan into action. Their door wasn't locked, and I had gotten past having to pick the lock which would have eaten up most of my thirteen minutes. Next I found was a door choice, after I had entered the building I found three doors before me in a square room. I had to pick one. One, I bet was full of remnants of the old factory, while another was a rigged room for of booby traps. Because I was able to see through a window in an alleyway when I found the factory, I took the far right door. Lucky day! It was the right one. What wasn't so lucky was that no one was there. No tables, no chairs, nothing to give away that the Jane crew had made their home here. Where were they? I searched around for any clue. Nothing. I began to give up, when at 12:10am someone started to walk through the door where I was waiting. Who was it? Was it one of them? Or was it my trustful friend? As it turns out, it was the police, and seeing me in a room such as I was they thought I was up to something.

Just as the clock turned to 12:13am, I found myself in the back of a police car, even after I had explained that I was innocent. The policeman driving the car, chuckled and told me with an even tone, why I was not, and such a surprise it was to me, I must relate it to you, his very words:  
_"The Jane crew was a simple gang. The factory was abandoned for many years, not one trap lay within it. The Jane crew was made for those people who thought that some people didn't deserve the rights to hold money. They'd beg for money, and when they got it, straight to the police they went. You knew all about one of these events, and never once turned in the criminal. That is all you are guilty of. Their murder was a mistake."_

"Who are you referring to?" I asked completely unknowing of who it could be. "You see that man, across the street, reading, in the 24-hour coffee shop? That is the son of a rich, but dead man. Flew the country so he could let his father die, yet he is the one the Jane crew's been chasing. Haven't you read the Newspapers about the debt they owed you? They gave it to you, but that man there, HE intercepted it, probably used it all up like a Vampire uses his victim's blood." I was surprised. My friend, my dearest friend-my closest fiend now. He was the one I needed to have revenge on-not the Jane crew. What scoundrel!


End file.
